Promises, Promises

by Annie Bryant

  “Did she run?”

  “No…that’s the weird thing. She wasn’t even running. She’s just kind of negative. You know the type. Never has anything nice to say about anyone else. Thinks everything is boring and stupid.”

  “Hmmm. That’s weird. That doesn’t sound like Henry at all. He always has a smile on his face. He’s kind of the class clown.”

  “Well, maybe he’s running for class president as a joke to tick off his sister,” Jennifer said as she looked at her watch. “Yikes! Gotta get going. Remember, Isabel, the paper is coming out the day before the elections. Deadline for articles is the Monday before the elections, but since your cartoons won’t need any editing, you can have a ‘drop-dead’ deadline of Wednesday morning. We go to press right after school on Wednesday.”

  “Got it.” That gives me two and a half weeks, Isabel thought. Maybe I’ll be okay.

  Then Jennifer called from down the hall. “EDGY!”

  Isabel felt a huge twinge of anxiety again about her ability to draw something edgy. In fact, she was beginning to feel more than a little uncertain about the whole election. Everyone had been so upset today at lunch. But, at least the BSG had a way of working things out. The cartoon thing, though, had her really stressed. Had she bit off more than she could handle?

  Avery’s Blog

  Check it out. I’m running for class president! There are four of us: Dillon Johnson, Henry Yurt, my friend Katani Summers, and me. The election is in three weeks. Katani said she wasn’t going to run because she has some squirrelly idea that friends shouldn’t compete with friends. My soccer coach says the better your competitor—the better the game. I compete against friends all the time. So I don’t see the problem. I think it will be fun.

  My favorite competition quote:

  “Besides winning, the most fun thing is getting out there and mixing it up with friends; it’s the competition.”

  —Al Unser, Jr., race car driver

  Survey says:

  What is your favorite way to compete with friends?

  a) Trivia games

  b) One-on-one games (tennis, bowling, golf, etc.)

  c) Cards/board games

  d) Team sports

  Results from the last survey:

  What do you like to do at the beach?:

  a) Swim (42%)

  b) Build a Sand Castle (41%)

  c) Play ball or Frisbee (12%)

  d) Fly a kite (3%)

  e) Lie there and bake (2%)

  CHAPTER 5

  Poster Mania

  Isabel couldn’t believe the change in the seventh-grade hall from yesterday to today. There were posters everywhere; not only for the presidential race, but also for vice president, class secretary, and treasurer. Most were handmade. But not Betsy’s. Her posters looked professionally printed.

  Dominating either end of the seventh-grade hall were toxic green banners. “Yurt Alert” was written in sloppy black letters. There were smiley faces on each end.

  “Can you believe this?” Isabel asked when she caught up with Charlotte.

  “Looks like you’ll have plenty of material to choose from for your political cartoons.”

  “Yeah…but I don’t know anything about political cartoons. I’m not sure where to start. I don’t want to get it all wrong.”

  “I know, you should look at Doonesbury. My father loves that cartoon. Maybe you’ll get some ideas from reading stuff like that. Did you have class elections in Michigan?”

  “Yes…but it was pretty low key. Kids here are intense.”

  “I think that’s because we live near Boston. Remember the Puritans and all that. They were very serious people and really hardworking, and had tons of town meetings and councils. I think people here are still like that a little. I’m just glad that I’m not running for office. See you later.”

  Katani, Maeve, Avery, and Charlotte all had lockers near their homeroom. But because Isabel had joined the school year late, she was almost in the eighth-grade hall.

  “Yurt Alert?” Isabel heard one eighth-grader ask another. “Haley Yurt is running for office? What a joke!”

  “No, that’s her brother…he’s running for seventh-grade class president.”

  Isabel jerked her locker open and started putting books in and pulling other books out. Suddenly, Katani was at her shoulder.

  “Look at this! When did they have time to do all this?” Katani asked.

  “It’s unbelievable!” Isabel agreed.

  “This is what I get for deciding at the last minute. Listen, I’m going to need help putting posters together and you’ve got the best lettering. Do you think you could help me after school?”

  “Sure,” Isabel said.

  Katani looked around at all the posters. “If there’s room to hang any more posters! They must have been working on these all weekend while I was deciding whether to run or not. I’m so far behind. I’ll never catch up!”

  “Wanna meet in the art room?” Isabel offered. She could see how worried Katani was.

  Katani nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks!”

  Isabel wasn’t used to Katani looking frazzled. She usually looked so totally confident and together. Isabel’s heart went out to her. “Look, it’s okay not to have the first posters up. The election is three weeks away, not tomorrow. We’ll be able to get them up soon. We’ll start right after school, okay?”

  “Okay. But I don’t have any materials—poster boards, markers, all that stuff.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll brainstorm slogans and make a list of what we need so we can start on them as soon as possible.”

  Isabel paged open her spiral notebook and wrote in huge letters: HELP KATANI WITH POSTERS TODAY AFTER SCHOOL. She showed the note to Katani. “See you then.”

  Katani took a deep breath. “Thanks! You’re a lifesaver. See you in homeroom.” And she started down the hall to Ms. Rodriguez’s classroom.

  Isabel felt a warm feeling spread as she gathered books from her locker for morning classes. When she first came to Abigail Adams, Katani had been downright cold to her. But somehow they had managed to make the friendship work. Isabel was flattered that the independent Katani had asked her for help. She ripped the reminder from her notebook and placed it on top of her pile of books. She’d put it in her assignment book later when she got to homeroom.

  Just as she shut her locker, she heard someone call her name. She looked out at the sea of heads bobbing by, but didn’t see anyone, so she started down the hall.

  “Isabel! Isabel!” She heard again,

  Avery popped out of the wall of people. “Great! I caught you! Listen, you gotta help me! I need posters pronto! Look at this!” She pointed to the posters hanging on either side of the hall. “Can you believe it? You’ll help me, won’t you? I thought we could get started on them right after school.”

  Isabel felt her cheeks redden. “After school today?”

  “You don’t have anything going on, do you?”

  “I…uh, well…I sorta have another commitment.”

  Avery’s eyes followed her to the reminder note on top of Isabel’s books.

  “You’re helping Katani?” Avery asked.

  “How about tomorrow? Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to help you,” Isabel said, feeling helpless. “Maybe Maeve can help you.”

  “Whatever,” Avery said, and disappeared down the hall.

  First Come, First Served

  As they walked to the lunchroom, Charlotte listened to Isabel relay the whole poster incident.

  Poor Isabel! It was so hard to be put on the spot like that! Having to choose between two friends! Charlotte was almost grateful that she had Sentinel meetings after school this week so she wouldn’t find herself in the same dilemma. “Oh, Isabel…what’d you say?” Charlotte asked.

  “There wasn’t much I could say, except sorry. I did tell Avery that she could ask Maeve. Listen, I’m going to get a salad today…meet you at the milk station?”

  Charlotte
made her way to the hot lunch line. Avery ran up, bumped into her, and grabbed her arm. Startled, Charlotte dropped the plastic lunch tray. “Yikes, klutz attack,” she muttered under her breath. Of course, the tray clattered to the floor, sending silverware shooting under the kids’ feet in front of her.

  “Hey…I’m glad I caught you,” Avery said, as Charlotte dropped to her knees to retrieve the silverware, which kept getting kicked further away as kids shuffled forward in line.

  Charlotte turned pink with embarrassment, but Avery acted like nothing was going on. She dropped on her knees and crawled along with Charlotte. “I need posters! Can you help?” Avery said.

  Charlotte reached for a fork just as Robert Worley moved forward again, and it rocketed across the lunchroom floor. Avery shot after it like she was being timed, grabbed it, and raced back. She handed it back to Charlotte. “Well, can you help me?” she asked.

  “Sorry, I can’t help with posters anytime after school this week because we have meetings for The Sentinel. But I’ll be happy to help you with slogan ideas,” Charlotte said as the lunch lady spooned mac & cheese onto her tray. American junk food really was tasty, she thought as her mouth watered.

  “Great,” Avery said, spewing out a couple of sunflower kernels in the process. “Excuse me,” she said and swallowed hard. “And my speech? Will you be able to help me with my speech? I’ve got lots of ideas, but I need someone like you to help me put the words together so I’ll really wow everyone.”

  Charlotte looked across to the salad line. Her eyes met Isabel’s. Isabel gave her a sympathetic look. “Well, uh…sure,” Charlotte said as reached for a bowl of applesauce and added it to her tray. “I guess I can do that.”

  “You’re the best. I knew I could depend on you!” Avery said, and then trotted off to their lunch table.

  Charlotte met up with Isabel at the milk station.

  “Posters?” Isabel asked.

  “No…slogans and speech.”

  No sooner did the words leave her lips than Katani walked up to her. “Charlotte, I need to talk to you before you get to the lunch table.”

  “What is it?” Charlotte asked.

  “Isabel is helping me with posters, and I really need you to help me with my speech.”

  “Uh…of course.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” Katani said as she turned. “See you at the table.”

  Isabel didn’t say anything, but looked at Charlotte with wide eyes.

  Charlotte blushed.

  “Well, it’s not like they both asked me to help them today after school.”

  “Maybe I should have offered to help Avery after dinner tonight,” Isabel said as they wove their way through the crowded cafeteria toward the BSG table.

  It was so quiet at the BSG table that Charlotte wondered whether things would ever get back to normal. She felt a little scared inside. Yesterday had been awkward, but nothing compared to the tension in the air today. Everyone ate quietly, stealing glances at one another. Charlotte tried to lead the conversation in another direction—any direction other than class elections. She tried talking about the upcoming football game, but her heart really wasn’t into it. When Isabel got up to get a cookie, she found her chance to bring up something important.

  “I was thinking after Saturday night in the Tower…,” Charlotte started.

  The thought of that night in the Tower made everyone squirm a little.

  Charlotte plodded on anyway. “You know, we all have our own private little space, our own window, our own window seat, but Isabel doesn’t. She’s one of us now, and she needs her own special space.”

  “Whatever,” Avery said. “I don’t have time to think about stuff like that right now. I have a few other things on my mind.”

  Charlotte nodded. “I understand,” she said.

  Charlotte snuck a glance at Katani who looked slightly annoyed, then looked up and saw Isabel heading back to the lunch table. “All I’m saying is, think about it, okay? Isabel deserves her own space in the Tower.”

  Maeve and Charlotte looked at each other as Katani and Avery stood up and bolted in opposite directions. Charlotte shook her head. Weirdness was definitely setting in, she thought. She could feel it right down to her toes!

  Last Choice

  The bell rang, and Maeve joined the throng of kids in the hall as she headed for her locker at the end of that long, long Tuesday. She was glad Charlotte’s locker was right next to hers…she hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since lunch.

  “I thought today would never end, Char. The only way I could get through class was to think that I’d be stopping for a Swedish Fish fix on my way to Hebrew school,” Maeve said.

  “Mmmm. You know, I would die for some Swedish Fish right now, too, but I have a Sentinel meeting.”

  “Avery asked me to help her with her posters today after school. I was so flattered that she would turn to me first…I would have done it in a heartbeat, but you know how it is with all the after-school things I have! Tomorrow I have tutoring, and Thursday I have hip-hop class.”

  “I know what you mean.” Charlotte sighed. “Avery asked me to help with her slogans and speech and then five seconds later Katani asked me too.”

  “They both asked you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I would…”

  “Do both?”

  “Well…the speech is still a few weeks away. I should have time to help them with the right wording and all.”

  “I guess so.” Maeve thought it was only natural that both Katani and Avery would have asked Charlotte to help with their speeches. Charlotte had such a way with words. With Maeve’s dyslexia…it was tough for her to get words down on paper. The laptop helped, but it was still a struggle. “I should have had you write my acceptance speech for the award I won. I really blew that!” Maeve had blanked out when accepting her Junior Community Service Award last month. She felt really bad that she’d forgotten to thank the BSG, so she’d had a private ceremony for them later in the Tower.

  “The speech you gave to all of us in the Tower was perfect. No way to improve on that!” Charlotte said.

  The thought of the Tower made Maeve think of today at lunch. “Hey! I’m so glad you said something at lunch about the Tower and Isabel. You’re absolutely right. She should have a space of her own.”

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Isabel, but I know how she must feel. Moving here, leaving her father behind in Michigan, having to live by her Aunt Lourdes’s rules. It must be tough; her Aunt Lourdes can be really strict and old-fashioned, you know.”

  “It’s so unfair! I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We should just divide the room into five equal slices.”

  “It’s a room, not a pie, Maeve. Besides, I’m not sure how everyone else would feel about that,” Charlotte said as she slipped on her vintage denim jacket.

  “It’s the only way to be fair. Each of the BSG should get the same exact amount of space.”

  “How are we going to divide four windows between five people?”

  Maeve scrunched her lips together in concentration. “There has to be an answer!” she said.

  Charlotte caught Maeve’s eyes and nodded down the hall. Maeve turned to see Isabel coming their way.

  “Isabel! There you are! Where are you going?” Maeve asked.

  “Oh, I promised Katani I would help her with posters in the art room. I felt so bad when Avery asked me to help her today and I already said I’d help Katani. I suggested she ask you. Are you helping her?”

  “Oh, uh…” Maeve’s cheeks reddened when she realized she hadn’t been Avery’s first choice after all. “Yes, she asked me, but I have Hebrew school.” Maeve’s feelings were really hurt. It seemed like she was never anyone’s first choice when it came to projects.

  “This is only the first day of campaigning,” Isabel commented.

  “It’s too complicated having two of the BSG running for class pr
esident,” Charlotte said.

  “They should have thought of that,” Maeve said crossly as she shut her locker door and walked away.

  “What’s up with her?” Isabel asked

  Charlotte just shook her head. She knew Maeve felt bad about being Avery’s second choice. But it seemed unfair to Maeve to tell Isabel that.

  CHAPTER 6

  Everyone Has Issues

  When she got to school the next day, Avery was painfully aware that she was the only candidate who didn’t have any posters. She looked at the other candidates’ posters as she headed down the hall on her way to lunch. Avery noticed that Katani only had two signs—one on her locker door and one on the door to a seventh-grade room. They were printed on the computer and didn’t say much, just “Katani for Class President.”

  Avery hit the side of her head with the heel of her hand. Why hadn’t she thought of doing that? It would have been a good temporary solution until she made real posters. Well, she might start out soft, but she would finish strong.

  Avery didn’t know exactly what she wanted to put on her posters anyway. More posters had gone up and she needed to think about how to be original. Dillon had a dozen that said, “Vote Dillon! He’s One in a Million.” Henry Yurt was sticking with “Smile! It’s a Yurt Alert!”

  Avery was not surprised when she got to the cafeteria to find Laura and Sammy standing in front of the doors handing out flyers for Betsy. Laura thrust one into her hands. “A vote for Fitzgerald is a vote for progress,” she said to Avery.

  “As if we had any other choice,” Avery muttered.

  Laura didn’t hear Avery’s comment because she was busily handing another flyer to another seventh grader.

  Avery snaked through the crowded lunchroom to the BSG table.

  “Did you see this?” she asked, throwing Betsy’s flyer on the table before she sat down.

  “Yup, got one,” Maeve said, tossing her copy on top of Avery’s in the center of the table.

  “We all did,” said Katani, dropping hers in the center as well.